


where the light won’t follow

by Ashesandmint



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Lizzington - Freeform, Post Season 5, Romance, Smut, but we’ll see how long that lasts lol, liz is still playing the ignorance act
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-06-07 05:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15212270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashesandmint/pseuds/Ashesandmint
Summary: She vowed to destroy him, to raise hell. She promised as much to her sister. But the mind is a fickle thing, and the ripe apple knows only to fall.





	1. Shadows

  
Elizabeth sits in her living room, with its blue painted walls and its brown bricks. It feels too big for her, too empty.

Looking at the bright screen of her cell phone, the contact number saved, she takes in the digits. The green dial button. She lets in a breath and prepares an upbeat façad.

“What do you want?” He says, and his tone is unamused, impatient. It completely throws her off.  
The last time he’d seen her she’d been beaten bloody. And she wante-, _expected_ , a warmer greeting.

She asks him where he’s been, what’s he been up to “do you have a new case for us?”

He shuts her down, indifferent. And Elizabeth couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help the irritation seeping into her. she wasn’t going to let him do this, make her _sad_.

She was supposed to be having the upper hand.

As soon as Reddington cut the call she dialed her half-sister’s phone.  
_That isn’t even his real name_ she reminded herself. Irritated she needed the reminder at all.

Yet it fell flat. Calling him by her dead father’s name seemed almost natural. As if it weren’t the most twisted thing.

The woman’s tone on the other line is a stark contrast, she’s excited almost.  
“So, What’s his next move?”

Elizabeth inhaled quickly.  
“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“What?” She could hear the surprise in Jennifer’s voice. _This isn’t how this works_  
“I thought you said the two of you were fine. That his threat to cut you off was an absolute bluff. Didn’t he- didn’t he hug you last time?”

The sun outside Elizabeth’s window glared at her “he’s probably had a rough day with the business,” She says, squinting her eyes “besides, secrecy is his default.” She moves to close the curtains but the clouds shift and move, shielding the light from her, beating her to it.

She had told him she gave up. On his stupid bag, on his stupid secret. She thought she’d fooled him. _No_ he couldn’t possibly know of the act with Ross, he died too fast to say anything. But right now she needed him to give her a new blacklister. To put her plan in motion.

“Tell him Agnes is sick, or you are. Get him to your apartment at least, play the role of the sweet daughter.” And with that her sister hangs up on her.

It’s only when he ignores her calls for two weeks does she really start to panic.

 

* * *

 

  
“Marvelous! Absolutely marvelous! Come here Dembe and look at this exquisite piece.” Red motions to the other man with his hand, waving and flailing. A pleased smile plastered on his face. “Straight out of Italy. Well, _stolen_ straight out of Italy.” He adds with a shrug.  
Dembe examines the painting in front of him. And he offers a small smile as a sign of recognition. “How did they get _this_ out?” And Red laughs.

Reddington extends his fingers to ghost over it’s surface, not quite touching the naked woman’s figure. “The first non-religious nude art work since.. the Greeks.” He said while chewing the inside of his cheek, not once taking his eyes off of it “Venus, goddess of love. On a sea shell being blown to shore by Zephyr, god of the west wind.“

The spotlights directed at the piece gave it a brilliant glow.   
“Lorenzo Medici comissoined it,” Red continued “it’s said to be in reference to his mistress, born in the Italian coastal town of Portovenere, _the port of Venus_.” He closes his eyes afterwards, as if recalling a blissful memory. _“The gold-filleted Horae happily welcomed her and clothed her with heavenly raiment.”_

“Are you going to purchase it Raymond?” Dembe asks him, his right eyebrow raised.

He gives the taller man a pat on his back “Oh don’t you worry, 15 million dollars is in our budget again, thankfully.” He gives him another short burst of laughter.

Dembe hadn’t seen him this happy in months.

 

* * *

 

  
On the third week she rings the number again, she’s gotten tired. Miserable. Then the line picks up and Liz feels as if her heart had jumped into her throat. “Red-“  
“Elizabeth,” and her heart sinks back down, down to the base of her stomach. It wasn’t him, It was Dembe, giving her no explanation of this silent treatment Reddington was subjugating her to. He only told her of a meeting. He gave her an address and a date.  
“It’s urgent” he says. and she’s left to her isolation once again.

 

* * *

 

“Dembe, what is it that was so urgent?” Red says. Expecting his friend to walk in, but he doesn’t.

He looks around, sees pristine white couches and a tall glass vase. The view from the window was breathtaking. The glow of the sun reflecting off the Potomac river. He truly loved high buildings. So far removed from the mundane. Up in the sky, untouchable. Closer to the divine. Not that that meant anything tangible to him no. But just the feeling of the sanctuary of it made him calm.

And then he sees her standing in the doorway. Clothed in a soft white dress. She emitted a similar aura. Of divinity. But what does _he_ know of such things.

He looked away fast, careful not to stare. Willing himself to pull up his castle walls. Trying to remember that he’s angry, that she’s exhausted her chances. But it’s hard to remember such trivialities when her lips are red and her eyes are blue.

A feeling she can’t untangle washes over her. Holds her in its clutches. Hate, of course it must be hate. _I hate him I hate him I hate him_ she reminds herself. And she’s concerned, concerned as to why she needs reminding at all.

“Hello father.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I binge watched the blacklist in the span of two weeks and have been in agony ever since lol. Lizzington has took over my life and my ability to function so here is my attempt at reclaiming some sanity. Enjoy !


	2. Aurora

  
“So this is a set up.” He picks up the bottle of Chardonnay placed on the see through table. And gives her a fleeting look, not nearly enough to satisfy, just enough to ignite his insides.

“Dembe didn’t tell me you were this unwilling.” Elizabeth is still standing at the door “So, is your childish tantrum over yet?”

Reddington huffs a laugh and pours a glass of liquid from the bottle. “You act like you don’t know what this is about Lizzy, you do.” a few strides and he’s next to her. Offering her the glass.

She takes it. All the while feeling the doorframe dig into her back more and more.

He looks slimmer, she notes, having looked him up and down. _old habits_

“I’ll be off to my affairs then.” He says as he moves to leave the apartment. Her reflex to block his exit is fast enough to spill a few drops of wine onto her chest.

Red’s vision travels down to her heaving chest, glistening with the clear liquid. And then back to her eyes. “What do you want?” His voice is stern but low, a mummer of sorts.

The phrase he utters sends a memory flashing into her mind. Of some dream or another. ‘ _What do you really want’_

Pulling through this day will be harder than she had anticipated.

“Don’t leave, please, I just want to talk.” _just_

He resists for a second, but ultimately gives in to her request. Something about old habits that never leave.

He pours himself a glass while seated across from her. “You have to come back to the Post Office, we need you.” She confesses to him, but he is unconvinced.

“I made myself clear to them and to you about the business with Ross and the bag, I told you that interfering with it would earn you my resignation.” he takes a sip and then checks his watch, as if she were so inconvenient.

“So because of that you’re going to leave me? You’re just going to ignore my existence?” She feels the inside of her mouth go dry,

His own heartbeat stammers inside of his chest. he sets his lips in a thin line “No, but i will teach you a lesson” and this time when he gets up Elizabeth doesn’t move to stop him, instead in her anger she knocks down the table in front of her “you son of a-“

Anger, white-hot courses through her. Better to be angry than to break down in front of him, she believes. But she must appease him, get back on his good side, what a mess she is, what an absolute _mess_.

She thinks quickly, of a way to turn this into an advantage, so she bends down to pick up shards of the broken glass, she squeezes it in her palm, and warm red blood runs down her hand. A small yelp escapes her. She stammers an apology, for her outburst and her mindlessness.

“Elizabeth no!” Red was already down by her side, opening up her palm, his face all concern and regret. He picks the broken glass from her grasp. She jerks her hand away, deliberation masked as pain, and a cut is made across his fingers. “Red I’m so sorry, i-“ And he shushes her and helps her up, taking her to the kitchen.

They stand by the cabinet where he pulls out bandages and alcohol wipes. She’s so close to him she feels his warmth on her side.  
A hint of guilt runs inside her as he wipes away her blood and tends to her wounds, his fingers already wiped of what little blood it had. The room grows silent. And when he finishes he takes the inside her hand and places a kiss on it, gentle and soft.

Elizabeth waits for a few minutes after he leaves, making sure he’s gone. She opens the lid of the trash can and fishes out his blood stained tissue.

 

* * *

 

 

“The lab will send back the report in three days.” Jennifer said, reclining down onto the couch. A bag of crisps in one hand and a beer in the other. A huge smile plastered on her face. She’s ecstatic.

They’re in jennifer’s apartment. The living room dimly lit, with one small gray couch, and books lining the length of the walls, their spines old and worn.  
Elizabeth doesn’t sit down, her sister doesn’t offer her a seat.

“Then you’ll run off to your assistant director with the results, _then_ you’ll get him to your hide-out or wherever it is you work and _then_ -“ she puts her food down and makes a motion with her arms, the right facing downwards, the left facing upwards, connected at the wrists. Shackled.

“You obviously don’t know Reddington if you think an arrest will stop him,” Liz replies, she raises her chin a little, and her voice is weaker than she expected “it’s been done before.” _Many times._

Jennifer studies Liz with her sharp looking eyes, and it feels as if she’s being watched by an eagle “What do you propose? Since you.. know him _so well_.”

There was a time when she’d deny such statements,  
‘ _our acquaintance is superficial_..’ She’d say and lie through her teeth. But now she ignores her ruse.

“I need to get to the bottom of it first, unravel his core purpose,” Elizabeth says then walks away, picking her black coat off the hanger “then we’ll see what to do with him.” _I, then I’ll see what to do with him._

She wanted to be the only decider, no one should have any power over this man, no one but her.

_Possessive_

She was half way out the door when Jennifer called out to her “you better not be stalling.” She says,

And Elizabeth closes the door without looking back.

 

* * *

 

“Why did you do that?” Red asks him. And Dembe lowers his newspaper.

“I know you miss her _Raymond_ ,” the younger man’s voice is forgiving, eyebrows arched “I know even if you try to hide it. And it’s eating you up” with that he returns to his reading.

Reddington tries to recall the feeling of betrayal, he tries to hold on to it but it slips through his fingers like a wet fish. In its’ place he thinks of her, her smile, her cuts and bruises. He thinks of her voice and that’s enough to squeeze the air out of his chest.

He needs her too _much_ , he needs her excessively and besides the edge of his sanity.

  

* * *

 

She lies in her bed all too alert, sleep not daring to come near her. Mind laden with overthinking and she feels her nerves on edge.

Her hand slides down beneath her covers, beneath the waist band of her pajamas, and she thinks this might calm her down, put an end to her restlessness.

With slow and lazy circles she lets out a muffled groan. And she sees his face, she imagines what he would look like between her legs, lapping at her mercilessly, her nails scratching at his trimmed gray hair. She closes her eyes and pretends it’s his coarse fingers pushing against her core, that it’s _his_ voice calling out her name over and over again.

Her chest is heaving by the time she finishes, and it’s only after does she register what she’s done. She’s _getting-off_ to _him_. And she muffles her rage into the pillow.

  
It’s infuriating that her thoughts wander back to Red now that she knows he’s not her father. Infuriated that her _lust_ for him has returned. 

And her night is a sleepless affair.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please don’t hate Liz, poor girl’s so frustrated from her subconscious need for Red to fuck her brains out, cut her some slack :(( lmaooo
> 
> Anyways if you liked this chapter let me know!


	3. Illumination

 

  
A spotlight is shone on the prima ballerina’s lean figure. It follows her every move, like stalker and prey. She raises her arms arch-like, and swirls in a cloud of fluttering feathers, white and tender. The transformation of a girl into a swan.

                        ****

Reddington is seated in the 15th row, never too close, never too far. The ballet’s booklet held firmly in his grasp, with its’ yellowing edges and it’s worn pages, it reads the date of march 22nd 1987.

He needs to be slightly far, so his mind could conjure a different image, of a different girl. A girl lost to time and to history, forgotten by all but him.

                        ****

  
The other dancers enter the scene and the movements of Odette increase in their franticness, she hides and runs and finally falls to the ground. The realization of her form setting in. It’s hideous to her, catastrophic. But in her dress and her feathers she looks beautiful to the other swans, ignorant of her escalating terror.

 

* * *

 

  
Elizabeth applies red lipstick generously, standing in front of her vanity. Purple smoky eyeshadow and mascara and she’s off on her way.

She knocks on the door of the Bethesda apartment, not quite expecting him to be there. A few moments pass and she’s already gotten her hairpin out and clanking against the steel of the lock. It opens and swings with a groan, and she wonders when he’d last oiled it.

The inside of the apartment is dark, and when she reaches to the light switch a thought stops her mid attempt. There were cameras here before and she thinks perhaps in the blackness she would be concealed. She uses her phone’s light to get around the seats and tables until she reaches his desk.

A quarter hour passes before she finds something interesting. A picture of young girl that isn’t her.  
_And who might you be?_ She asks her  
_Why are you hiding this Red, beneath all the papers and files while mine are framed all around._

_Are you trying to forget? Or is this another one of your missions?_

She sees a Two-Story house behind the girl, she squints and tries to focus on the girl’s features but couldn’t discern them. She turns the picture and there’s a year printed on the back. 1987.

Liz tucks the date away in her mind and tucks the picture in her purse. And it feels like a rush to her, unraveling parts of him that he keeps away. She likes it, she likes it a _lot_.

_Don’t you keep secrets from me, keep them from anyone else in the world but not from me. I want you open and honest and laid bare before me._

A rush of electricity runs up her spine after she’d articulated the thought, it makes her pulse quicken despite her.

_Laid bare before me_

She leaves as stealthily as she entered.

Elizabeth wonders where the girl is now. she wonders if _Red_ knows.

 

* * *

  

Elizabeth walks down the stairs of the mezzanine, her attention not with the show at all. She sees him, all too focused, too caught up in the ballet that he doesn’t notice her until she’s a breath away from him.

His face betrays an unease, a disarray that’s uncharacteristic of him, so she encloses her fingers around his and doesn’t let go. _I’ll tug you back into my orbit._

But when she tries to fish for her motive she finds it has become blurry. _to help myself._

Immediately she feels how _fake_ that is. That she’s _lying_ to herself.  
_I want you back into my life Red... and I don’t know why._

 

* * *

 

  
_The narrator tells of a man drenched in grief. So much so that his tears never stopped, they fell and they fell, and his tears filled the land and made the lake. His heartbreak was over his child, and the child, cursed by a sorcerer, dances as a bird beside the lake._

The prima ballerina slips into a new skin, black and dark and brazen. She dances with force this time, with a focus and a grin that’s mischievous.

Her persona is vibrant, it takes over, consumes her, and her final act is painted in tragedy. The single light focused upon her is overwhelmed by the dusky shadows all around, creeping closer, encasing her. She twirls and twirls and cries and cries and then _finally_ , she wholly falls apart.

                      ****

  
“That was.. _intense_ ” Liz trails off after the heavy crimson curtains close, ending the show. There had been no applause nor a standing ovation that was well deserved. Elizabeth looks around then remembers it’s only the two of them, and Red is almost in a trance.

The year on the booklet in his lap draws her interest, she thinks and she thinks and it distantly clicks in her head why this is so important to him, why he’s so _distraught_.

The revelation wretches her. The sentimentality of it all, the picture, the ballet. His withdrawn attitude, his fear of letting go, and his _insistence_ on protection.

He’s lost this girl, he’s lost _his daughter_.

“ _Reddington_.” She urges, and it’s the first time he really looks at her that night. Her colored lips grab his attention for a fraction of a second, and when he pulls his hand from hers he places it on her face.

She stops, and it’s not like he’s never touched her before because he _has_ , but the gesture is so unexpected she merely opens her mouth then closes it again.

“Elizabeth I have-,” He begins and it sounds like a stutter “I’ve _missed_ you.” And the air around her stands still. His gaze is so intense and raw she forgets how to breathe.

Then he remembers, the role he’s supposed to be playing, the role he thinks she still believes, _a father_. And his hand draws away, the suffocating tension between them dissipating.

 

* * *

 

  
The Post Office is teeming by the time she gets there. A blur of papers and people and operativeness, and just the energy of it all is such a contrast to her own depleted one.

She sees the other agents stare at her passing by, and it registers in her mind that most of them always have. Since her very dramatic entrance into the facility and her scandalous exit. All the whispers about her and Reddington, all their speculations. And perhaps, some were true.

“Good morning Aram.” Elizabeth says with a smile she barely musters. The young man in front of her scrambles in his seat, a mug of steaming coffee sloshing in his hand.  
“Agent Keen!” He scrambles some more, as he always does, and liz relaxes a bit. He’s always been endearing. “How- how are you? Got anything new from Mr.Reddington?” And what little ease she had flittered away.

“He isn’t co-operating with me.” _He’s barely interacting with me, last night was probably just him sliced raw by emotion._

“Hmpf,” Aram says with an unintended pout “Never thought that’d happen, you know, to _you_.” He then starts to backtrack, realizing that his words hurt her.

“It’s, it’s fine. Aram I need you to take a look at this,” She pulls out the picture she’d stolen the night before. And in the bright light of the office she sees it like the first time. “Is there a way to find this girl? Or the house? It’s rather old.”

He takes it and frowns “I could digitally age her and run a facial tracking on the girl.” He says and Elizabeth hesitates. Even though she has a distinct feeling that they wouldn’t find her. Still she hesitates. What _if_. What if they _found_ her, what would Reddington do? What if he dropped the entire act and disappeared into his smoke-screen. And when he has the one person he’s longed for, when it’s all said and done he won’t _need_ her anymore.

She starts to panic and Aram notices. He doesn’t know what to make of it, just that he shouldn’t ask too many questions. “Wait,” he opens the lid of the scanner and places the picture on it, he clicks and clicks on his keyboard, and the girl and the house appear in front of them on the computer’s screen. He enlarges the picture and focuses on the background. “There, the building behind it, it’s barely visible but it doesn’t look like another house. A school or a church maybe?” He zooms out and in again “The number of the house is sixty six, so, that should help us narrow it down. I’ll make a search algorithm for blue houses in DC that have that number and a school or church near it.” He’s bubbling with the excitement of his method. And Elizabeth can’t help but smile.

“Tell me when you find anything.” And with that she’s off to her desk.

_________________

  
By the end of the day she’s tired all over, yet she’s glad immersing herself in work helped take her mind off things. She’s packing her stuff into her bag when Aram knocks on the door of her office.

“Hey, nothing yet on the girl, but I think I found the house.” He shows her a photo on his smartphone. “This is the last record of it, an old ad from a real estate agency.”

She sees the pale blue building, the number sixty-six small but visible next to its’ front door. “You’re great Aram, send me the location so I can go see it” She tells him and continues clearing her desk.

“That, won’t be possible.” He says, and she looks up at him again. “ _It’s been blown up._ ”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I got this done faster than I expected.. enjoy !


	4. Cimmerian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cim·me·ri·an  
> /səˈmirēən,səˈmerēən/
> 
> 2.Greek mythology ;  
> relating to or denoting members of a mythical people who lived in perpetual mist and darkness near the land of the dead.

She walks amongst the rubble, the bits of glass and wood and brick. In the aftermath she tires to recreate the explosion in her mind. The heat it generated, the flames licking at the sky in its’ wake

 _Who was the owner?_ Liz had asked  
_Our computer records have been compromised, I’m sorry_ the lady on the phone replied  
_I am a federal agent, if you don’t answer me you_ will _be sorry, who did you sell it to?_ Liz asked  
_One Kenneth Rathers_ the lady on the phone replied.

Elizabeth closed the call without saying another word. She now replays the conversation, rolling it around, puzzled and somehow a little afraid. She keeps walking on through the destruction, hoping to find something, _anything_ , to answer her.

Who did this

_Why_

 

* * *

  

  
Reddington stands at the counter of a liquor store, waiting for the clerk to finish ringing up a bottle of Chateau D’Yquem.

He sees Dembe outside putting plastic bags into the Mercedes, and when they’re done he calls her number.  
“Elizabeth where are you now?” His voice is considerably cheerier than the last time they’d spoken. She gets nervous, still standing on the ruins of his home. She pulls her most nonchalant voice and tells him she’s out shopping.

“I’ll come by at 7.” And Elizabeth just wonders what he has that’s so urgent, enough to get him to her apartment when he hasn’t been there in months.

                        ****

  
The spring sun still hadn’t set when he knocked on her door. She let him in and saw he carried a basket on his arm. He took off his sunglasses and his beige fedora, and gave her a small smile, nothing too excited. But she saw something in his eyes, something peaceful.

“What’s this?” She points at it with a tilt of her chin.

“A picnic.” He tells her and his eyes ask her to accept.

“Let me get my coat.” She accepts.

                       ****

The Air breeze gently brushes the leaves of the trees around them. He takes her to a small park not so far away. The dipping sun setting the clouds ablaze in hues of pinks and reds. A couple of squirrels fret near by.

They sit there in silence, neither knowing what to say. He stares off into the sunset and basks in its’ beauty, reclining his head to the side, closing his eyes a fraction. He puts his hand down on the smooth lawn, extending his reach out of the edge of the blanket that’s laid out. She follows his every breath, and unintentionally stares.

It never surprises her, how much she likes his view, it never surprises her that she’d stare at him and take in his features in such consideration. She likes how he looks, how he moves and tilts.

 _Enough_ the word comes to her as a mental reprimand. _He’s a liar_  
_He’s a fraud_  
_He’s caused me so much pain_

She tries hard not to think about the way his lips slant or the times he’s saved her life.

  
“Made from the milk of Lacaune sheep and aged in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in the South of France,” He starts while pulling out cheese from the basket and setting it on a china plate. Elizabeth sees a bottle of wine “Best matched with Sauternes. You see, it cuts through the fatty creaminess of the cheese while _softening_ it’s sharp notes.”

With a silver knife he cuts through the Roquefort, and then offers her the plate. He lets her pour the wine.

“Why all of a sudden?” She asks him, taking a bite from the cheese. It tasted creamy and sour and tangy on her tongue. He was right, the Sauternes went well with it.

“I found this in my cellar and wanted to drink it.” He says without looking at her, his tone airy and aloof.

“Why not with Dembe?” She raises an eyebrow, willing him to come up with an excuse.

“There were two of them,” Reddington picks up and examines the bottle of Chateau D’Yquem “I drank one with him and didn’t want this to stay unopened.” _No other reason of course.. not an excuse to sit with her in a park all alone, and_ definitely _not an excuse to treat her..._

He was still mad at her, and at the same time he needed her in order to _breathe_.

“Oh.” It comes out of her mouth as a gentle exhale.

                      ****

They bask in each other’s company for an hour, some small talk laced into long stretches of silence.

Then his phone rings and he quickly rejects it, a second too late. She’d caught the name on the screen and a gear at the back of her mind kicked into motion.

_Dominic W._

_Of course you son of a bitch, of course you know him_. She muses that Dominic’s refusal to talk about Reddington wasn’t without its’ reasons, them being either blackmail or promises.

She decides she’ll pay the old man a visit later on. But right now Reddington had her attention. He checked his Rolex for the time and got up on his feet. He extended his arm for her, helping her up, slightly close. 

He was wearing his blue jacket, it wrapped around him nicely and Liz thinks he must be quite warm, his generous body filling up his clothes and creating heat to fight off the chill of the night. It doesn’t cross her mind though, _not at all_... that he’d warm her up quite well should she open up his jacket and shirt and embrace him, she doesn’t think about it at _all_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He comes to her in her dreams that night. Body littered with his criminal scars, hands dripping in someone’s blood. _Who’s blood is that Red?_

He gives her a sly grin and in his deep voice he says _no one’s_ and they don’t think twice before they do it. How very _unrealistic_ of her subconscious.

Elizabeth yanks him by the collar and eats at his lips, _devours_. She doesn’t have mercy for his vulnerable pink skin, she bites and she licks until he opens up and presses his tongue against hers. He tastes of his cigar and the tang of iron, it tastes exceptional. She wants his flavor in her mouth forever. And in her sleep she kisses him forever.

She mounts him in her dreams, his length filling and stretching and making her moan over and over again. She rides him till she’s too sore to get up, her thin body pressed naked upon his larger one.

Elizabeth catches her reflection in a mirror that wasn’t there before, her unruly tousled hair, her lips almost as damaged as his, a _little bit_ of blood smudged on them.

But he’s not done yet. He flips her over, pushes himself into her with such vigor she arches her back and closes her eyes. He runs his hands up and down her with such precision, searching and memorizing, caressing and _teasing_. She’d hate to admit how much his touch made her feel godly.

_Venus tangled in the sheets with the incarnation of the devil, or was it the god of war?_

But she’s not done yet. They ravage each other without much remorse, and she _lets_ him. His breath ragged and oh so close, oh so warm on her skin. She feels no need to resist her imagination when she’s having so much _fun._

He’s sweaty and panting and so is she, and they stay there skin touching skin. And she fears she doesn’t really want to wake up.

 _Don’t be so cruel_ he would say _give me everything_ he would say.  
_Give me the entirety of your being Agent Keen. Elizabeth, give me your **soul**_. He would roll her name on his tongue and savor it with honey.

In her dreams there are no reprimands, in her dreams there are no bags nor bones, and most importantly in her dreams he _fucks her_.

_Mars, the god of war, lies in his wife’s embrace. And sweet Venus never shuns him._

In her dreams she is thrilled, and when she wakes up the feeling drains out of her. Leaving hollowness gnawing at her flesh instead.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Elizabeth wakes the next morning trying to dismiss any lingering fire from Reddington’s fantasy. She mostly succeeds.

Driving past the tall trees of the forest and the secluded roads, it isn’t long before she reaches her destination . She knocks on the door four times before Dominic answers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Staying up and listening to Gingerbread man by Melanie Martinez wrangled this chapter into being, so cheers to sugar and sweets. Let me know what u think!


	5. Irradiation

* * *

“Dembe where is it?” Reddington asks, rummaging through the drawer, taking out the piles of paper and letters. In his haste he runs his finger over the edge of one, a prick of pain annoys his already anxious mind.

“Where’s what Raymond?” Dembe comes closer, his eyes darting between the desk and the mess Reddington has created around it.

“Her picture.” Reddington says, his voice low and grave.

he sits down in the chair with a heavy thud. He opens his mouth and darts his eyes to the ceiling, defeated.

“You sure you didn’t leave it somewhere else?” He asks Reddington, and Red just clicks his tongue. Dembe tries not to worry, but the thought crosses his mind. He pulls out his gun and stalks out of the room. “Someone’s been in here.” _And they knew about the girl._

                      ****

” _Hello, Dominic. remember me?”_

_“Yes of course, come in.” He moves to the side and lets her in. He looks out at the trees before closing the door._

_._

_._

_._

_“I’m here to talk to you about my mother.”_

_“I told you I barely knew her.”_

_“But you know Reddington.”_

 

* * *

“Check the camera’s feed.” Reddington tells him.  
The footage rolls, He squints his eyes at darkness. And there in the middle of it, a small light flickers on and moves around. It’s not enough to discern a face, but the intruder’s silhouette betrays something, the size of her, the way she carries herself around even while trying not to be seen, he’d etched her physical form in the stone of his memory, all the times he’d stare and look.

A siren of danger sounds in his thoughts. A sense of betrayal slithers up his spine.

_So this is how you’re playing._

 

* * *

 

“Call him and I’ll have you arrested on the spot.”

  
Dom’s face twists in resignation. He looks sideways, he’s frustrated, nervous. “No matter what you think, you’re wrong.”

“What were you going to tell him last night?” His surprise is evident, as if she’d pulled a veil from on top of him. And the surprise  wrangles with something else.

“Do you work for him?” She asks, a little harsh, and he gives her a mocking laugh.  
  
“Work _for_ him? Brilliant, after all these years trying to stay as far away from him as possible, you’d think i would willingly work for him?”

“So he’s forcing you?”

“That’s not what i meant.”  
  
“I don’t think you understand how critical this is. I asked before if you were an operative and you denied i-“

“I told you I’m no-“

“If you’re _afraid_ to speak, if he’s threatened you in any way, I _will_ protect you from him.”

They’re sitting on the chairs of the dining table, sun rays beaming through the window. Strings of light intercepted by the branches outside, illuminating the dust floating in the air.

“How will you protect me?” His eyebrows are knotted, with a one sided smile “will you help me fake my death and fly off to South America?” It only takes a second for his smile to disappear, he’s let her on more than she knew. He’d shed light on it.

And her face falls too, she parts her lips as if wanting to explain. She wanted to say that it was all so sudden, that it was an erroneous mistake, colored by fear and _selfishness_. But she says none of that. Instead she realizes exactly what he’d just done.

“ _He_ told _you that?_ ” She was exasperated.

“Told me? Told me what?” Trying, but failing, to backtrack.

Elizabeth tries to calm down, she shifts the tea he’d made for her in her hands, but puts it down again without drinking. This feels like many things, it feels like embarrassment. She’d thought the topic would never come up anymore and she’s _tired_.

“Did he ask for help?” She questions him. And it’s as if her tone couldn’t decide between anger and defeat. “Or did he just tell you, as a friend...” _Lizzie, don’t be silly, I don’t have any friends_

He thought about twisting a narrative, that Reddington came to him for help after her abduction. But he knew she’d trip him up, he didn’t have enough to run with it. He’d say something and it wouldn’t match an event. And quite frankly, he is _tired_.

“He came here for my help yes, to mourn you.”

 

* * *

 

“She came to me that night, at the opera house, she-“ his voice betrays a sadness that chews at his insides, a sadness that manifests in his eyes. “She held my hand, she held it and I felt her skin on mine.”  He flexes his grip, open and close. “But she was just looking for answers, as she always has.”

“Raymond, that’s not the whole truth.” Dembe hates this, he hates seeing the aftermath of liz on Reddington’s soul. He’s seen it one too many times. He’s seen him _suffer_ too many times.

“She _cares_ about you.”

 

* * *

 

“Why you? How do you know him?”

Dom ignores her question and continues “He sought me out, and I hated it. I kept telling him to leave, but he didn’t. He stayed and he droned on about you.

“I saw, an abyss in his eyes. Drowning in your wreckage. He even went to that place”

She has the sense to look ashamed, part of her wishing she hadn’t asked. But a part of her that is hidden deep down, somewhere in her shadows, _wants_ to rediscover his pain.

And it’s alarming, it’s alarming because that part of her, in it’s perverseness, wants to know just how _much_ he’d felt it, how much he’d mourned.

It wants to taste the evidence of his commitment again and again, the one she’d seen and tasted many times. It wants, in it’s shadows, to _brag_ and _relish_.

If liz were the kind of person that’s honest with themselves, she would have acknowledged how twisted that was, she would have _begged_ for his forgiveness.

But she hadn’t apologized, and she certainly wasn’t going to beg. Especially not after she found out everything was just an elaborate scam.

 _It couldn’t have all been so?_  Elizabeth tries to fight the hurt rising in her.

 _No one is that convincing an actor._ Her breathing is getting harder.

_But if there’s one thing he’s good at it’s acting._

_It doesn’t matter._ She’s willing her eyes not to water, she’s trying so _hard_.  
_He doesn’t care_  
_He doesn’t love you  
And It doesn’t **matter**_

It’s hard to make sense of it, to reconcile his actions with her discoveries. To reconcile his actions with a _meaning_. _To reconcile her feelings with sense._

She’s been here before, at the crossroads, lost and hurt and afraid.

She’s been here that time when they peered into her mind, and she told him he was a liar. That he was only after the Fulcrum, that everything was just an elaborate scam.

_He’d proved her wrong once..._

                        ****

Dominic hadn’t given her anything else. He said she’d have to ask Reddington herself.

She told him she knew something about him  
He told her to _go ask Reddington herself..._

  
“What are you doing here?” She finds Jennifer crouching at her front door, waiting.

“Hello to you too.”

She’s fumbling with her keys when she hears his voice booming from behind, as if he’d been waiting in the walls.

“You didn’t tell me you were having a family gathering.” confident, cheery even, and Elizabeth turns around and gives him a small smile, hoping no one hears the pounding of her heart. _This isn’t good_

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Well_ , I hadn’t meant to intrude, I came here to talk to you Elizabeth. The two of you are trying at sisterhood it seems?”

They’re all standing inside her living room, no one bothering to sit, like the seats would bite them if they did.

“We’ve been reconnecting,” _liar_. “Some bonding.” Elizabeth hopes she’s convincing.

Jennifer puffs at her words, she turns her head. She’s not interested in joining in on their little conversation and their fucked up _thing_ , what ever it is they do.

Yet it goes to wonder in her mind why he played into the other girl’s life only, not hers. And whatever curiosity she has gets trampled by the sheer relief of not having to deal with the faux affections of the man who ruined her life.

Not that he’d show any affection at all towards her, no, that’s reserved for the _special one_.

She almost feels bad for her.

But then she remembers the number of bullets shot into Ian’s heart, and even its total justification isn’t enough for Jennifer to not grudge her sister.

                       ****

_“What were you doing in my apartment Lizzy?” He asks her, coming closer, challenging.  
She thinks about playing dumb, but she knows better than to do that now._

_“Just looking for something.”_

_“Might I ask what that something is?”_

                       ****

Jennifer barely makes out the words they’re saying, the both of them standing in the corridor in front of Liz’s bedroom. But Liz hadn’t opened the door, hadn’t let him in. And so the voices weren’t entirely concealed.

She senses a fight about to erupt. And she guesses that crashing a gasoline tank into their embers would serve just well, since her sister so _obtusely_ refused. She was going to do it herself.

She walks outside and takes the stairs down onto the side walk. Her phone’s brightness immediately adjusting to the blinding light of day. She dials in the three numbers while clutching her purse closer to her body.

“ _Hello, 911 Whats your emergency?“_

_“I’d like to tip you on the location of Raymond Reddington, and something more.”_

 

* * *

 

“Where were you this morning?”

“At work where else would I be?” And when he glares she rolled her eyes at him “You’re not seriously-“

“Elizabeth _enough_. The picture, why did you take it?” He suspects an answer but waits, searching her face for a denial. Dom had texted him that she went to him asking questions, he wrote to him as a heads up, he said she _suspects it_.

“I’ll answer that when you tell me who she is.” she breathes, it feels a little hard to do so. What with his confrontational presence, it feels huge in such a small space. And to her inconvenience something of the previous night creep into her heart, and suddenly everything gets harder.

“I don’t have to answer to you.” It sounds humiliating, and her accidental excitement withers and dies.

“I’ll hear it from you Red, wether you like it or not.”

“You’re threatening your _father_?” His emphasis on the word ‘father’ feels like a provocation, a _dare_.

And one she fails at all the same.

She’d wanted to keep him in the dark about it for as long as possible, but an expression passed on her face and he freezes, that she’d been playing along to his game, that _she_ _knew_.

And he doesn’t react. He doesn’t know what to feel.  
_Fear, and anger_. A brick wall falling, shattering his safe illusion. He feels exposed and naked, he feels _afraid_.

Elizabeth tries to brush it off but it’s too late.

A beep sounds from her phone and she thanks the universe for intervening. But soon as she reads the text all the blood drains from her face.

“You have to _run_.” She grabs his forearm and yanks hard. “Now!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing at 3 am really is tedious isn’t it?  
> But anyways... thanks to all of you who leave comments and kudos ! It really means a lot <333


	6. Translucence

She’d told him to run. Grabbed his arm and shouted. And it was only a matter of seconds before he’d understood why.  
_Sirens_

He thinks of Dembe down by the car and hopes he got away in time. There was no time for Reddington, they were here and she’d set him up. She was letting them have him.

It didn’t make any sense, her eyes were wide and frantic, her voice was loud and high. Something was out of her control. Something was _wrong_.

Arrest didn’t scare him, he’d been arrested time over time over time again. But something else, something new, _old_ , had come into play.

_What are you doing Elizabeth_

“Reddington you _have_ to go.” She was leading him to the fire exit. She’d heard the sirens too, and she knew they were too close.

And yet a part of her insisted that _no, Reddington always slips away_. And that he’ll just wriggle his way out of this one too.

“What have you told them?” He stops so abruptly she looses balance. He stares at her, her blue eyes disbelieving. _What are you doing Red_

“ _Nothing_ ,” Banging on the door. “I didn’t call them, Jennifer did.” The door is crashed in and a shock bomb is thrown. “I didn’t..” Elizabeth says but only she hears.

They were both on the ground, SWAT agents pining them, putting handcuffs on their wrists.

 _Oh, that’s cold_. She thinks as the metal bites into her skin.

 

* * *

 

  
Half an hour passes before they release her. The warden had gotten a call from Cooper ordering her immediate freedom. She’d asked about Reddington, about his release, but the warden just laughed.

“He’s number four on the most wanted list sweetheart, I’m not giving him to you.” The man was in his fifties, strong, tall build, he wore sunglasses and he wasn’t going to co-operate.

 _Sunglasses?_ Elizabeth was in no mood. She called Cooper and wanted him to sort this out, to give her Reddington.

“I’m sorry Agent Keen, but the new Director of the CIA denied my transfer request for him. I’d need the Head of Criminal Justice to overrule _him_.” He sounded anxious himself.

“I- I want to talk to him.” She could hear her voice get lower. Energy and anger battling the tiredness rising inside her heart. “ _Alone_.”

“I could arrange that for you.” And he hung up.

  
                        *****

The cell they were keeping him in was in a space all by itself, like the one they’d put him in years before, when a plane crashed and he knelt before her.  
He was enclosed in, all metal and silver bars. His arms were restrained and he sat on a bench at the end of the cage. Animal-like. She entered and the guards left.

He was an exhibition for her exclusively.

They agreed to cut the camera feeds for fifteen minutes. But special forces would be stationed outside the door. Peering in every now and then.  
“You’ll have to wait a little bit longer. Cameras are down for now.” She said.

Reddington’s head shot up the moment she stepped into his sight. He parted his lips and closed them again, his tongue moving in his mouth as if tasting the words before saying them.  
“Well done, Agent Keen.” Almost a growl. “Have you told them yet?”

None of it had been spoken aloud, _none_. But he was a smart man, and now he was aware of her newly acquired knowledge. And he thought, it was only a matter of time before she used that knowledge.

“Shut up.” _This isn’t my fault_. Maybe, if she kept repeating it to herself, maybe she’d believe it. “Jennifer has the test results, if we don’t move quickly she’ll submit them along with her own. And then I won’t be able to stop it. They’ll know who you’re not. That all of it was a lie, what you did for me was a lie.” She’s standing in front of him with her arms crossed, the curls she’d put her hair in that morning had let loose and were framing her face.

 _That’s pretty_ , he thought.

He moved his head side to side and clicked his tongue. “Oh, that wouldn’t work for you would it Lizzy? I bet you’d rather have me chained up on a boat instead. All to yourself.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

There were multiple white led lights overhead, but the spaciousness of the room felt almost dim.

She circles his cage, letting her hands trail the cold bars. She counts fifty bars before she’s right behind him, his back slowly rising and falling with each breath he takes. “Maybe you’d have liked that too. _No_ , not maybe, _surly_ you’d have liked it.”

Revelations shouldn’t come out so softly and in whispers, like this one. Not when its implications drive so deep into their shadow. But it’s there in the open carried on uncertain smiles. Smiles that aren’t exactly kind, even if they aren’t exactly mean.

She stares at the back of his head for a few seconds before he cranes his neck, and half turns, as much as his restrains would let him. He’s strapped so close to where she’s standing, she could touch him if she stretched hard enough.

“How presumptuous of you.” He tells her in a calm and low tone. Not a single syllable out of line, careful to appear unaffected. _Oh, Red..._

“Hmm.” She fake pouts, knotted brows and all. “I remember hearing that before.. what happened I wonder?” She’s enjoying this, and she should. “ _Oh_ , yes when you were talking about me. And you wanted to seem nonchalant, but you weren’t.”

Now it’s Reddington’s queue to chuckle. His head tilts in his typical has-the-upper-hand manner, regardless to the fact that he’s in chains, and she’s free. Regardless to the already rising tension and the truth of him out.

_Confrontational? you’re not intimidating me, Red._

“That’s if you accept the premise that I meant any of it, which you don’t.” He’s baiting her. Trying to claw it out of her so subtly.

It’s too early for a confession to come out of her. Not while he’s being so _patronizing_.

“I don’t.” Elizabeth doesn’t waver on her surface. Letting her double edged words fall and lacerate them both. “But you being a fraud has nothing to do with desire.” _Mine and yours both._  
“You wanted me since day one in the Office, God knows why, was it all that stalking? Did it fuel you?”

The air is shifting, no longer as calm as it were.

It feels like a long time before he speaks to her, he’s not as collected as he was at the beginning of their meeting.  
Reddington half believes she’s just riling him, but then it starts to sink into his bones that she’s just being honest. That she really is so appalled at their whole run together. At his entrance into her life five years ago. That maybe, he thinks, he might’ve been wrong after all.

“I never thought of you like that,” She takes a breath to retaliate, but he beats her to it. “Not before we worked together.” He says the last word like he’s careful not to drop it.

Elizabeth flits her attention to the bleak gray walls, then to the tips of her fingernails. She wants to turn around so he won’t see her out of the corner of his eyes. _So he won’t see her face burning up._

She should have known that playing around with questions like these was dangerous. It’s now she who’s trying to hide. _Because hearing him say it out loud was too much._

Hearing him profess for the first time rings all kinds of alerts in her nerves. Because now _he confirms_ , he confirms to her what she doubted but wondered times before. Because hearing him say he wants her is making her head go dizzy.

 _Enough_. she’s not going to beat him at this, she knows it, but she tries all the same.

“Your dick almost cost you your life Red, having sex with me must’ve been so unimaginably good in your mind that it made you go through all of that.” Her throat doesn’t go dry _at all_ , and her pulse doesn’t go haywire _at all_. She’s donning a meticulous mask, she’s pushing the narrative of his _want_ being the only one present, that hers is nonexistent.

It’s now Reddington’s turn to feel embarrassment running up his face, the fact being laid out in the open, after all he’d done to extinguish it the past two years, since the tests had proclaimed _Raymond_ as her father. It feels dirty.

 _It shouldn’t have been this way._ He ruminates. _I should have told you the truth then_. He considers what to say next, on what he could possibly say to redeem himself if but a fraction in her eyes, because _at the end of it all_ , beneath all the anger and pain, that’s the only thing that matters. Only she matters now, not revenge or self-preservation. And in his heart, he knows how dangerous that is, he knows how _damaging_ she is to him.

_The ripe apple falls, it doesn’t know what else to do_

The steel binding his wrists rattles as he tries to shift more and more in her direction, the artificial light reflects in his eyes. She braces herself for his reasoning, she braces herself for _lies_.

“If everything I’ve ever done was disingenuous,” he starts ever so softly. “If all I’d ever been was spurious, my unadulterated care for you was not.”

She falls silent and still.

“If all my emotions never meant anything, if all affection I’ve felt in my life didn’t mean anything. My love for you would still be true and real. My _love_ for you Elizabeth-“ More words try to claw their way out of his throat but fail, dying at the tip of his teeth.

He looked raw, as if he’d ran sandpaper down his own throat and was now struggling with the sensation. Because _of course he’s afraid_ , because he’s said variations of his love _before_. He’s exposed himself to her _before_. But he’s afraid, with the reveal of his impersonating, that she’d dismiss it all. She’s told him as much herself, but he won’t stop saying it. How disgusted must she be?

He’s praying to fate and the stars and his mother’s grave, _praying_ , for the first time in decades, for her to _believe_.

“Elizabeth, _I love you_.” She feels like she’s going to break, a china doll unable to fight the rise of _so much_ clashing emotions in her chest. A china doll caught up in a hurricane.

Her feet move and she’s surprised she doesn’t fall right there on her spot, so she moves, needing to leave as quickly as possible, unable to _breathe_.

He calls out, his voice higher, louder. “I love you, Lizzy. I love you.” He doesn’t stop even after she’s gone. He doesn’t think of the repercussions of declaring something so important in a high level prison cell, even if the cameras were out and only the walls bear witness, he doesn’t think of anything but how fast she left and how silent she went.

                          *****  
She practically runs, and as soon as she’s out of his sight she leans on the walls to prop her. The prison guards come to her, asking and questioning. And their presence feels surreal, like they shouldn’t be here at all.

She’d been so consumed in there with him that everything else melted from existence.

“I’m fine.” _Not at all_. “I’m going to meet with Assistant Director Cooper and be back again for my- _the_ asset.”

She sits in her car attempting to calm herself because _he’d sounded so honest_. His words and his face and his eyes, they were all so focused and hurt and _honest_. And now she’s crying because in spite of herself, she _believes him_.

 

* * *

  

  
They’re all standing in front of the Office’s large screen when she enters. Her presence so shaken, her greetings unuttered. Aram looked at her when she spoke, and he saw just how _red_ her eyes were.

Samar registered her distress as well, she glanced back at Aram, wordlessly telling him to comfort her. He came forward, hugged her, but she swatted him away, _“I’m fine.”_ And it was all Elizabeth could do to pretend she’s not losing her mind.

“When’s the transfer gonna happen?” Her voice was also shaken.

“We’ve tried contacting the Director, but he’s in a presidential meeting, as soon as he’s done we’ll get him back, don’t worry.” Ressler is standing to her left, his hand extends to pat her shoulders, but he retreats, changing his mind.

“How did they find him anyway? I know he only gets taken because he _chooses_ it.” Samar says while turning towards the overhead screen, her heels making her seem taller than usual.

Elizabeth takes in a deep breath, her anger returning in full momentum. 

“My sister.”

 

* * *

 

“Let me in. _Now_.” She says, her voice violent.

Jennifer opens the door a fraction, keeping the chain intact “What?”

“You piece of crap. What have you done?”

Jennifer huffs and starts to close in her sister’s face, but the other girl pushes back hard, keeping the door open.

“I knew you wouldn’t go through with it, you were protecting him.”

Elizabeth tries to calm herself _“I told you to wait”_ it comes out of her teeth.

“Look, I don’t care what you want, It’s already been sent, once the parcels get cleared to every authority in DC, it’s all going to be over.”

It takes her a moment to process what had been said to her, and Elizabeth feels her jaw clench and her eyes widen. “You did _what?_ ” _Oh no_

“Listen, _Lizzy_ , _I know_ , I know you’re upset, but this is my right. By taking on my father’s name he ruined my _life_. This is my right.”

She doesn’t want to cry, least of all in front of her, but Liz hears a whisper in her mind that Jennifer is _justified_. She squashes it down just as fast.

“No, you’re not.” She turns to leave, headfirst into the mess they’d made. Her with that blood sample and Jennifer with her _selfishness_.

“So it’s true, you _are_ in love with him.” Jennifer side eyes her. “I’d heard about it from Ian, that the FBI agent was in it with my father. Then I met you and you told me he’s your dad. I thought, oh he’s wrong, he’s her dad. But he’s not our father, and you’re in love with him.” She shuts the door and Elizabeth feels herself go numb.

_I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not._

She crouches on the floor of the corridor while holding her stomach and cries again.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn that wasn’t easy lol. It was fun tho.  
> Also ao3 reeeally needs to let me copy-paste italics cause I am tiiiired. (This chapter is brought to you by italics galore !)  
> Let me know what you think! :*


	7. Flares

A stray cat stands on alert, it eyes the freshly brought trash. It smells something distinctly sea-like, knowing that smell well. Stalks close as soon as the human leaves, and then it pounces.

A cat feasting upon fish remains doesn’t notice anything else of value there, its only concern is its food. So burnt papers of Elizabeth Keen’s investigation into the man who calls himself Raymond Reddington are unnoticed to the cat, except for maybe its undesirable smell.

 

* * *

 

“He’s being released soon Keen.” He says it and expects a show of relief, but her anxiety remains in its place. “Keen?” He’s never been good at reading people, but she wasn’t good at hiding either.

“I need your help.” She tells Ressler, uncrossing her arms and placing one on his shoulder.

   _____________________________

 

“There’s nothing we could do.” The closed space of Cooper’s office isolates them from the rest of the facility. The four of them stare at her in deep concern and opposition. “And infiltrating high level offices isn’t something we will do, even if it were possible.” Cooper’s voice comes out low and sure. He doesn’t tilt his head like he always does, just lowers it so their line of sight is aligned. He’s stern, but he’s sorry.

“You still haven’t told us what those envelopes contain.” Samar is a defying force as always, and as she should be.

“They have information that could jeopardize Reddington’s-“

The tall Iranian woman cuts Elizabeth’s sentence short “You’ve said that already, what _is it_ that will compromise our asset?”

The silence is both embarrassing and tense. They’re waiting and she desperately cannot decide. To say or not. What would happen, If they knew? They _certainly_ can keep a secret. She thinks to their entire operation, the clandestine nature of it. _They’re trustworthy, they’re... like family._ But Elizabeth doesn’t know what’s in her that refuses to speak.

_What’s the worst that could happen?_

She feels a crawling in her spine. _possessive_. It’s ridiculous really, that her wanting to keep his secret has to do with her desire to hold onto it. This _thing_ , this truth. Took from her and took. Her husband in his recklessness, her _sense of self_ , her sense of closeness to Red.

But it gave her as well, it gave her jealousy, it gave her possibility. _He’s not her dad. He never was_. And that gives her relief. It gives her a release from the clutches of a stomach-deep sickness, her repulsion with herself. That she’d _ever_ thought of him _that_ certain way.

Nothing made sense yet. Why would he go through such lengths for her and she wasn’t his daughter?

 _He was there that night._ And she had the vague notion that his reasons were birthed there, in that night and in that fire.

_And no father would make her feel the way he had._

She decides not to speak. And the disappointment in Samar’s eyes is faint but visible.

 

* * *

 

  
Elizabeth’s grip tightens on the suitcase’s handle. Her knuckles are white and her lips are pale. She’s not sure of anything, nor is she certain of her state of mind.

Staging an attack on the fbi headquarters isn’t something one would do in sound mind period, but it’s what she’ll do anyway.

Because a name is just that, but being fooled doesn’t sit well with powerful people. And they won’t be happy learning that they have been for the past three decades.

Because this man is far too important to her to let them decide his fate. Because identity theft is nothing compared to other things he’s done, but _Reddington_ being dead since 89’ could let loose any kinds of hell.

And her Red had been so _insistent_ no one finds out.

She recalls her conversation with Jennifer before going through the guarded gate. She’d told her to disappear, if just for a short while. To retract her claims. She said that won’t be possible. Elizabeth told her to go. Begged her to, so there’ll be no way to proof those tests. It took something being whispered in her ear for Jennifer to let go and do as she’s told.

   ________________________

  
The metal detectors sound the instant she passes through, but she doesn’t stop. She needs to get inside, right in the middle. On the seal carved into the ground, she stands then kneels on both knees. A dozen armed persons surrounding her, shouting, pointing their fully loaded guns. She kneels and places her hands behind her head, an image not unlike that of his first surrender, some five years ago.

   ________________________

  
The following few days are a blur of chaotic-ness. She gets swirled in between interrogations and cold uncomfortable cells. It’s a process she’s been through before. And one she’d put others in before. And that fact doesn’t elevate any of her restlessness, only the thought of Red does.

 

* * *

 

  
“What the _fuck_ was that?” Ressler’s face is animated with fury and fear. She looks to the side, avoidant. She doesn’t have the capacity to argue. “How the hell are we getting you out of this?”

“I had you release Krilov for a reason.” She retorts, and a small realization tugs on his eyebrows.

He remembers her request, and the immense hate he held for that man. But there was work to be done, and they can’t do it without Reddington. Whatever Liz was keeping from them, if Krilov could be used to help her so help her he will.

“He’s going to deny it you know.” He’s staring straight at her while she starts fumbling with her cuffs. “He’s not going take on a terror accusation and shut up.”

“Krilov couldn’t possibly prove otherwise.” Her eyes are blue glass. Almost transparent in their calculation.

“This is wrong, and you’re gonna run out of luck someday Keen.” He says while getting up from his chair. The interrogation room she was brought in to from her cell was small. The light overhead almost striking Ressler’s skull in his swift movement.

He softens his tone before telling her he’ll get her out soon enough.

 

* * *

 

Liz stands behind the wooden desk, her blonde hair catching the light and becoming almost translucent. It came over her suddenly, the urge to dye her hair into that same color she sported while on the run. Was it the sense of outlaw-ness, or just that itch of change before doing something reckless? She wasn’t certain, and she wasn’t going to fully acknowledge that his _reaction_ last time was enough to make her want to do it again.

“Your history in the murder of Attorney General Tom Connolly isn’t helping ms. Keen.”

Elizabeth bites the corner of lip and sighs. This wasn’t ever going to go away was it?

“Your honor I have stood trial for that years ago. And the jurors and judge decided on my actions, and the president decided on my fate.”

A pause.

“What exactly is it that Doctor Krilov has to do with your attempted bombing?” The judge asks, short dark hair and an air of finality.

Elizabeth leans forward and raises her voice ever so slightly, the breath she held finally let out. “Doctor Krilov has manipulated one of my colleagues before, Agent Donald Ressler, into attacking the late Advisor Laurel Hitchin. His attempt was unsuccessful as my task force intervened before damage had occurred. And the doctor was released recently in exchange of giving us information about his associates.

“Unfortunately the doctor turned and tried to sabotage our operation once again in an attempt to take down our asset, who your honor may know as Raymond Reddington. Since you know of the nature of our task force and of the previous attacks we have witnessed, I am pleading you to see this incident as it is; a framing and a sabotage.”

The mummers of the jury start to rise, and a few uncertain looks are exchanged.

“Anything else you’d like to say? Agent Keen?” She looks at her from above her nose-based glasses.

Elizabeth tries to suppress her smile, they shouldn’t know how much she’s enjoying this. And frankly she wonders if anyone should.  
“They took blood samples from me the day I was taken in custody, Doctor Krilov probably used the exact same substance he used on my partner. If you have-“

“Yes I am holding the report right now.” She cut through. “They found, _Propofol_?”

It’s getting hard for her to conceal her smile, and the tug at the corner of her mouth is irresistible.

“Your honor, there’s something else I remember being told to do.” Elizabeth gives her best confused expression, searching and thinking. A slight pout to top it off “Krilov, or one of his associates, it- it was kind of foggy, but I recall them having me fake some DNA tests, about Reddington and his daughter? Yes, yes, and send them to officials’ offices. All in the attempt to undermine our asset.”

The judge thanks Elizabeth for her candor and announces a break.

   __________________________

 

It takes them two weeks to settle her trials. Krilov’s past manipulation of Special Agent Donald Ressler helping her convince the jury that that’s what happened to her as well. The small drug dose she’d injected in herself before entering the headquarters sealed the deal. And Elizabeth thinks, that their believing her would also lead them to dismiss those tests Jennifer had sent.

 _Finally_ , she thinks from her small cell bed, finally she can relax.

 

* * *

 

They release her, free of charges and innocent. And mischief brewing in her veins, gets forgotten when she arrives at the Post Office.

She should’ve headed home but she couldn’t, not without seeing them and hugging them and thanking them. They’ve done enough and more.

It’s after she parts with Aram does she see him standing by the periphery of them, Waiting.

They lock eyes and it’s like neither of them remembers how to act or breathe. The silence stretches and yawns and it gets nothing in return. Only more anticipation and a wordless exchange.

She frowns so slightly, and then she goes to the elevator to leave.

People in the crowd would see her act as that of rejection, a magnetic repulsion. But that’s not what it was.

She read his face and he read hers, and as if the fear of falling apart in front of a room full of people prevented them from coming close. In her bones she knows he’ll gravitate back, knows he’ll come to her when she left.

And so she finds him knocking on her door, she finds herself burning in her blood with a longing for his deep voice.

No one knows what to say, but he’s unbelievably sweet looking. He wants to be mad at her, for being so damn _reckless_. For putting herself in so big a predicament, for almost sabotaging _herself_.

But there’s no place for ill feeling now.

There’s no place for reprimanding her, not when he just got her back. Not when _she_ just got him back.

They want to fall into a safe routine, the back and forth of them. But something’s far too different. Truths skin them of a layer that surrounded them and kept them apart.

She’d almost raised hell. And he knew why. He knew. It was for his sake, and the crushing fear that bloodied his heart subsided with her in front of him, _here_ with him. _His_ Lizzy, _far too brave._

“So, are you going to tell me your name?” She’s gentle, for a change, she says it lightly and with a tug of a smile. She steps closer. Closer than she’s been to him in weeks, her heart picks up on the proximity.

But like she changes her mind she moves a few steps backwards. She’s beckoning _him_ to come to her. “You’re awfully calm.” She knows he’s not calm. Even if he pretends.

“You’ve changed your hair.” Is the first thing he says. “My name’s of no consequence here.” Is the second. And finally. “What are you feeling now?”

His question stems from genuine concern. And so she answers genuinely. “All over the place. A little disoriented.” She looks at his shoes. “Relieved.”

“ _Ah_.”

The light plays with the fairness of her hair. And his gaze fixates.

An energy, something in the few feet between them, buzzing, vibrating. Through the air, a wordless charge.

  
There are planes balanced on needle points. Swinging ever so slightly. Featherlike, featherlight, left and right. But never choosing, never crossing. Until now.

There could either be separation or the choice to shove the scale. A tipping of sorts. Separation or utter unification.

And it occurs to them, that there never was any other option. The third option ran and fled, it no longer exists.

A choice.  
Just a choice.

 _No_ , not _just_. _Unjust_ , urgent, exigent. _Essential_.

When he follows her into the heart of her apartment, her eyes follow him, open and waiting.

Something in her body tells him, tells him that he’d be welcome, if only he tried.

  
“Yellow hair on you looks... _divine_.” He says, breathless. “And your mother was never blonde.” He takes her face with both hands and pulls her lips to his.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I wanted to update way earlier but it’s been a fucking rough week lmao. My phone got stolen which was... severely unpleasant :)))) but ! Moving on. I debated putting the sex scene here at the end but, i am a nasty person so I decided to shove it to the next chapter and have you all wait ;)  
> Anywayss, i know there should be more explanations and more things happening but I AM also a lazy person lmfao ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Hope it isn’t all over the place and hope you like it !


	8. Lustrous

_Your mother was never blonde_

She vividly remembers the stunned look on his face from before, from the time she’d dyed her hair and stood in anticipation, she remembers the speechlessness and evading. She’d told herself it was about her mother, that his reaction was purely that of reminisce.

_She was wrong_

His skin feels soft and sweet. _you should feel rougher than this_. But she doesn’t mind, not at all.

Reddington slides his tongue and she moans into him like the desperate little girl she is.

He whines in response, like her voice could rock him back and forth all on its own.

  
She registers the nervousness underneath his want, smells the impatience beneath his gentle touches and it’s like a tug on her tipping point.

Finally she focuses, and when she does it’s all power and greed. It’s the culmination of years and years.

There’s no patience to be left, there’s certainly no place for giving up now. They’ll have what they need, they’ll have it tonight. And then more.

His vest is thrown on the floor, and his white shirt quickly follows. She’s fumbling with his zipper when he lifts her up with surprising ease and places her on the dining table. “Oh.” She breathes out before she’s wrapping her thighs around his waist, pulling him closer and closer.

It takes her all of a minute to register the unnatural coarseness of his back.

She runs a finger into the concave of a scar, and she’s almost horrified to discover that there’s more of them.

“ _Red_.” She’s sitting on a table top having him between her legs and yet her palpable concern halts them both.

If only the past wasn’t so complicated.

“Give a wild guess, theorize.”

It doesn’t take long for her to get why he expects her to know.

_Burn scars_

Ones he expects her to understand. The snake-like scar tissue on her wrist grabs her attention.

_From a great fire. A fire that took and took. A fire that bound and held._

She wants to ask, _why_ , what made him do it. But the fear of losing his pressure against her body stops her.

So instead she motions for him to turn, and obedient as he is he turns. It’s the first time she’s seen his back and she’s taken by the sudden urge to _sooth_.

Red doesn’t know what to expect of her. And a shakiness starts clawing in his rib cage.

It’s repulsive, he believes. And she’ll get turned off now. _What lousy luck you have, Red._

So when he feels her lips and smudges of her saliva on his skin he freezes.

And then he lets his muscles loose.

She doesn’t stop kissing the rough burnt back of his until she’s mapped it entirely. It takes some bending on her part, but she’s enjoying his shudders too much. And she’s so _careful_.

“Elizabeth... _Elizabeth_ -“ He all but growls her name. And when he faces her again he sees that her eyes were not dry.

Her name tastes so good in his mouth, she thinks, she’ll need to make sure.  
Not letting him speak, she’s already licking his tongue. Open-mouthed and wide. Sweet and very very overdue.

 

   _____________________

 

Samar climbs the steps to Liz’s apartment for the first time. She’s never been here before, but she’s received ample instructions and she knows she’s at the right place.

 

   _____________________

 

“Ah- ah-“ Liz’s panting is a little too loud. But, she thinks, it’s his - _Ah_ \- it’s his fault.

He’s practically _pounding_ into her. The gentle love-making that they started had turned into fast and urgent _fucking_.

She feels the inside of her catch fire every time he thrusts. It’s making her eyes roll backwards. And her throat feels dry from all this need.

Reddington surprises himself with the ferocity of his movements, he always treats her gently, _always_. _But not today._

It’s not his fault. She must know by now, that her mere smile sets him on fire. Let alone her body, her lips, the part in between her thighs. Let alone the fact that she’d been so _welcoming_. So _open_.

_You’ve let yourself down again._

This wasn’t what he had planned. He thought he could keep it up, the act of being unaffected by her body. That she was sacred and not to be touched in certain ways.

But it tipped his entire rage when he thought of any other person touching her, with all her magnificence. And he couldn’t accept that anymore. _His Lizzy_. There was not a man on this earth worthy of her. Not even him, but worthiness has little to do with desire.

And desire was making him lose his mind.

With her around him, taking in his length so eagerly. With such enthusiasm. He wasn’t the only one with _wants_.

Her arms are around him, welcoming, and her nails are digging into him. Even with all her tries not to, in fear of hurting him and his scarred back. But his pace was too fast for her remember that, and he just didn’t _care_.

He looks at her flushed face, her lips parted and her breath ragged. And it’s a vision surpassing all the paintings of the Renaissance.

It registers just how outlandish all of this is. A day ago she was a prisoner, the last time they’d talked she was discrediting him, _his feelings for her._ She was wary and unwelcoming.

Yet here she is. On a table taking in his dick thrust after thrust after thrust. And the sounds her throat gives off making him question his sanity.

She leans her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. And he slows down a little. Opting for a less frantic act. And when he comes inside of her she bites his shoulder and almost cries.

_Not of pain, not of fear._

Out of utter _relief_. An unbelievable happiness. She’s so so happy, and her heart is far too unstable in its beating.

She can’t believe any of this is actually transpiring. Lucid dreams are states that are common, where the spectator is a participant, and where desires are fulfilled.

And yet she’s far too alert for this to be all in her head.

 _You just came inside her..._  
His neediness had blinded him, and what worries that entailed would be thought of later, right now he wanted to soak this moment into his skin. To never ever forget how it felt being with her.

When he pulls out his come is slick and warm inside of her. And she shudders with the pleasure of it. the way it fills her up, the way it made her _wet_.

She makes a mental note of passing by the drug store later on.

 _That was so good_ she tells him. holding his face with both her hands and kissing the tip of his nose. He closes his eyes in response, his breathing still too rapid.

It’s only when she bends to kiss his mouth again does she hear the knocking on the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Liz?” She’s knocking a rap with her knuckles.

They look at each other wide eyed and alert. She thinks about ignoring it, being in no _condition_ to answer.

But Samar is insistent.

Elizabeth acts quick. She finds her discarded clothes and dons them, runs her fingers through her hair and tells him to wait in her bedroom.

When she opens the door she finds the other woman smiling tentatively. She’s pulled herself together well but she still _smells_ of sex.

Samar tries her hardest not to show that she’s aware of it.

She thinks about leaving, not wanting to intrude, that maybe _her partner is still here_. But Elizabeth was already motioning for her to come in. It then becomes apparent that that wasn’t a good idea. It’s not that they’d made a mess, but her panties were still underneath the table, and quite visible.

“So, I- I just wanted to check on you, to see you.” She makes a conscious effort not to look at the table. “After everything that’s happened.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth sounds a little surprised, as if it were the weirdest thing of the other woman to say. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Samar had always been a pragmatic person, sometimes cynical, and her dealings with people were no different to that. She’d created a distance between herself and Elizabeth after the fake-death. When no one else did.

But that was a long time ago, and the fact is that she does care about Elizabeth, wether she shows it or not.

Today she wanted to show it.

“Is everything okay with Reddington?” She asks her.

And Elizabeth involuntarily closes her legs, the wetness of him all too real again.

“Yes,” she puts her palms on her thighs. “Everything’s _fine_ with Reddington.”

Samar doesn’t know what to make of the odd tone of her reply, but she decides to let it go.

“I know you would do anything for your father but-“ Everything inside of Elizabeth comes to a screeching halt. And her blood almost freezes over. “But sacrificing yourself in such a manner is too much.”

Oh, _oh_.

She’d forgotten, in their heated session, that people still thought they were parent and child.

Elizabeth feels the bile rising from her stomach.

“You got off the hook this time, but please,” Samar is all doe-eyes and concern. “Please don’t do something so dangerous again.”

Elizabeth hopes the other woman doesn’t notice her absolute unease. She asks if she wants some tea just to get up and have something to do.

“Green, with jasmine if you have.”

When she’s done and getting ready to leave Samar pats Elizabeth’s shoulder, and half-hugs her.

“I’m just glad you’re back with us.” She doesn’t care to admit that losing her again would have broken her heart. That one time had been bad enough.

But when she passes before the door she sees something that makes her confused, then uncertain, then utterly repulsed. She leaves far too quickly.

Elizabeth closes the door and then notices Reddington’s fedora hanged on her coat hanger.

 

* * *

 

 

“Lizzy.” He whispers in her ear, he’s right behind her. Coming out of the room as soon as Samar left. He’s all hot breaths and uncontainable longing, he just can’t get enough of her, kissing her neck, touching her, feeling her, loving her... _he’s mad for you_ she knows, she now knows.

She’s melting into him despite the red flags that raised in her mind because of Samar, and the overwhelming presence of him smothers her realization until the morning.

 

* * *

 

 

The case they were working on was taking up everyone’s energy. Elizabeth gets filled in, and gets ready, trying to keep up with the rest of the team.

Samar is pointedly avoiding eye contact with her, and Elizabeth is drenched head to toes in dread. _She knows_.

“Samar?” She enters into the closed office Samar was working in. Her voice is playing at being fine, but the shakiness in it is unconcealable. “Can we talk?”

Samar looks up at her with an unsure expression. She tells her to enter and close the door.

“This isn’t _at all_ what you think.” Elizabeth starts, shaking her head and her hands. “Whatever-“

“Listen, Liz, whatever I think doesn’t concern you, and whatever you do privately also doesn’t concern me.”

Liz sighs and rubs her temple. “But you’re so fucking disgusted.”

“Shouldn’t I be?” She raises an eyebrow.

The distant hum and whirr of printing machines and phones calls carries over to them. And the unawareness of the outside world mocks her.

“No.”

And it’s a split-second decision. One in which Elizabeth decides to tell her coworker everything. One in which she’s entrusting Reddington’s most important secret. One in which she decides to trust Samar and to lift the repugnance from her.

“Oh.”

Samar is all knotted brows and careful intake, she nods as well, when the truth of those envelopes gets bared to her. “Not to be rude or anything,” her tone is much much lighter now, with a ghost of a smile. “I just assumed you two were sleeping together since the day I started working here. And then the news of you being related shot that thought from my head. And _now_ ,” The half smile takes form. “I still can’t believe you two didn’t fuck while on the run.”

“ _We didn’t_.” Elizabeth wants to roll her eyes. “Why did _everyone_  think that when I came back?”

Samar takes the coffee mug in her hand and before she drinks from it says: “Intuition.”

                         *****

“So, what’s his real name? Or is that too confidential for me?”

Elizabeth gives her a small smile, not wanting to tell her that she doesn’t _know_ it.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s by her door later that night, and he’s kissing her again when she breaks it off. He looks at her with heavy lidded eyes, expectant.

“What’s your name?”

He rolls his tongue before answering, weighing it. “Doesn't matter.”

“ _What is it_?”

He shrugs his shoulders slightly, as if his real name was too unimportant. As if his entire being from before was nothing. “Ilyas.”

"You're-"  _Like her, like Katarina._

“Yes.”

“Imagining you as anything other than Raymond is, _slightly_ ridiculous.”

He nuzzles into her neck, and she caresses his head with her right hand. He knows what she’ll ask next. “Why did you do it?”

It takes him much longer to answer this time, and when he does his voice had dropped deep and low. “I wanted to convince them I had it.” She immediately knows who them and what it are. “I went to get it but your father had already hidden it with you, not that any of us knew that at the time.” His words vibrate through her skin while he mummers into her, and sorrow seeps into him more and more.

“I wanted the Fulcrum to trade for my family’s life.” He finally admits, and Elizabeth thinks a knife just lacerated her. _Oh my god. Oh my god..._

“Are they- did you get them back?” She hopes with every fiber of her that his answer is yes, even though she doubts it is.

“No.” And she wraps her arms around him as hard as she can.

“So I thought I’d rise high enough to tear them down bit by bit.” There are cracks in his voice. “I thought if the old me took over from Reddington, they’d think he was still there. Because Ilya Koslov didn’t have what they wanted, but Reddington did.”

 _Koslov._ She tasted the name on the tip of her tongue _._ Elizabeth didn’t want him to continue, not now, she wanted to make him better, to _comfort_ him. And so she did. Leading him to her room and kissing and riding the sorrow out of him. And when they finished she laid his head upon her chest, and he slept to sound of her heartbeat.

 

* * *

 

  
A man in a black suit waits by the front door of the apartment of a woman in Virginia. The man had been sent there to look for her and bring her in, to make certain of some claims. Claims that, despite a certain agent’s lies, could be true.

“May I help you?” She says to the man, grocery bags balanced in her arms.

“Jennifer Reddington? Please come this way.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> name edited to the new info on the character Gabriel Mann is playing. Which we can safely assume is young Red!  
> Also this chapter was very fun to write lol
> 
> Let me know what you think!! (I feed off of comments... not really.. yes really lol)


	9. Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys! happy holidays and a happy new year to all!  
> there's a slightly disturbing passage over half-way through the chapter, starts after "taking all of her will not to puke." and ends before "The silence is deafening this time" if you'd like to skip over it.

She’s staring off into endless green fields and trees of apples and vines of grape. A great white mansion sits at the edge of the greenery, on a cliff, not quite isolated, not quite alone. She looks to her left, down to the waves that crash and bend.

A woman stands in the balcony, draped in silk and leaning against alabaster stone, not bearing neither an expression of happiness nor of distress, but only that of peace. She hears a distant call, like someone calling for her with barriers in between. And as if she sees something down beside the water she runs down the stairs, out the great wooden doors.

_“Mommy.”_

A pang of recognition hits in her chest, she knows the voice, even if she’d heard it so little. Even if she hadn’t heard it for almost a year.

“Agnes?”

 

Her pace is fast, finding herself beholding blue waves and sea shells. She doesn’t remove her shoes, she doesn’t remove her clothes. She runs into the ocean as is, no token left behind. Nothing to be remembered by.

 

 “Agnes!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Elizabeth wakes up with her pulse jammed in her throat. consciousness returning to tell her _it’s all okay, it’s all not real_.

She turns to roll over, wanting the cooler side of the bed. Only there’s someone next to her that she’d forgot.

He’s still asleep, quiet and unaffected. She reached out a hand from under the covers to wake him, wanted to feel his attention, but stopped.

It was a new sight for her, his naked form and his sleep as well. They’d lived together once, she’d sleep before him and wake up after. Elizabeth being not fond of the early morning, but the clock in _his_ mind always woke him up. _Maybe it was all that stress_.

“Good morning.” She’d tell him after half an hour had passed and she felt his first stirrings.

“Lizzy.” It doesn’t take him time to come-to, his eyes intense, as usual, and slightly disbelieving, unusual. Something he lives and feels is far too exciting. And he feels a rattling in his chest as if it caged a glaring celestial body. As if there could only be light in that cage of flesh and blood. Now that his _light_ has him in her embrace, in her _bed._

“Listen.” He whispers in her ear, all warm breaths and suffocating intimacy. _Warm. But what else could he be?_

“I bought you a _tremendously_ beautiful painting.” She asks him from where. And he, truthful as ever, tells her of the stolen _Birth of Venus._ Elizabeth rolls her eyes at the sky and clicks her tongue. “well _I_ didn’t steal it, and it would have been taken with or without my interference.” 

He reaches for her gun-roughed palm just as she starts to pull it away and he presses it to his left cheek, down his neck, and finally above his heart. It was a matter of sensation. She could feel the vibrations, the systole, the diastole. Blood in, blood out, picking up speed. Accumulating, flowing and for a moment she worries for the rise of his pressure. But he’s fine.

“I could have Edward ready the jet to Italy on a moment’s notice.” He begins his bargaining.

“I have work to—”

“Or we could fly off to Paris, there’s this exquisite little bakery just behind the Champs-Élysées that makes the best pecan _brûlée_ in the entirety of France.” The word _pamper_ flashes in her brain, and for a split second she yields.

Tokens of show, added jewels on a glimmering crown. _Look at all the things I could make happen for you._

But she pushes forward and kisses him anyway. First on the lips, then on the spot where her palm was pressed, right atop the part of him that belongs to her most.

 

  ----------------------------

 

“We should wait for Keen to see this.”

Samar was donning a solidity she was used to, in the face of gut-wrench and the occasional horror.

Ressler pulls the white fabric over the small body. In the small forensics lab, where white is the color of death, where cold is too dominant, disgust finds a familiar home and doesn’t wane with the passing of time. Only solidifies itself as a constant. Here is the end.

 

“Fine.”

  --------------------------

 

The stark change of scenery. Warmth, the promise of a new life. White of death against the white of a bed in a bedroom of two who couldn’t be more alive.

The walls here aren’t thin, they don’t carry the gentle gasps of one Special Agent, they don’t reveal much, and they certainly don’t talk. And it’s a sort of comfort. The privacy.

She looks up at the ceiling, and her neck bends backward into her pillow. Back until it won’t go any further. Grappling for a purchase on his head she doesn’t get. His hair’s too short, and for the first time she finds it an inconvenience.

But there’s no need for guidance, she’d only wanted to play and feed into control. He knows what he’s doing, and he doesn’t hold back. A thought piques her smirk, that no matter who he’d entertained before he’d be most generous with Elizabeth Keen. Exclusively. And he’s generous, not once masking his inability to refrain, or his depraved self.

There’s the maddening pressure of his tongue against her folds. Once and again and again. His jaw moving against her, fast, then slow, then fast again. Elizabeth hears a strangled yelp run away from her mouth, and immediately feels his vigor. It’s an enthralling image. Him so intent on making her lose her mind, so intent to please. Her, a little far gone, very strung-out. Pleased.

He pulls back a fraction, the breath coming out a slight breeze on the sodden place where his saliva was smeared on her. All that licking and open-mouthed fucking ached his jaw. And she thinks he’s done just before the sudden feel of his teeth gets her breath all tangled up. It’s barely a graze but she holds on to the air stuck in her chest. _fuck you Red_.

The curse seeps through her rough voice. And she doesn’t want him to stop, so she reacts back, closing the openness of her thighs a little around his head, just a slight pressure on him which he likes. He likes her encircling him, her presence all around him. It excites almost as much as it comforts, regardless of whatever tiredness he has or whatever numbness his ears were starting to get.

And when he’s got her near and she raises herself, arching her back, closing her eyes. She reaches a peak and all the rough tenseness lets loose and leaves, numb relief coming in its wake. She’s all spent and red.   

“ _Red.”_ she says after catching her breath, and pulls him up for a wet kiss, like a gift for all his hard work.

They stay for a while, breaths mingled, tongues never tiring of each other. It had been pent up for too long for it to be moderate, or rational, or anything other than _desperate_.

Something like love passes through the air. And there it is. She thinks, _there’s my confession to you._

Only it was silent on her lips. as it has always been. _There_ and silent hiding on the tip of her tongue and snaking around in her mind.

 _Love_ , _are you sure_

_Is there anything else you were ever sure of other than love_

  

* * *

 

“Hey, Keen? We have a body here we want you to check out.” Ressler says, catching up to Elizabeth with a slight jog, noticing the frosted donut in her hands. “Ah, you might wanna’ get rid of that before we go, wouldn’t want you bringing up the contents of your stomach.”

Elizabeth wanted to smile. _Come on_ “I’m not an amateur, you know that right?”

The elevator creaks before moving upwards, its yellow walls contrasting Ressler’s deep blue suit. 

“No one’s professional enough for dead little girls.”

 

              ----------------------

 

The smell hits her first, and her eyes water from the formaldehyde. She straightens her back before taking another step. It echoes in the small and tiled room. The dead are so silent.

They’d called her down here for an analysis. To use that profiling certificate that’d almost turned rusty from disuse. Losing your licence does hinder one’s skill, it seems.

Elizabeth is by the table now, the silhouette underneath the white cloth weird, distorted, and she holds her breath before pulling it back.

She thinks about what Ressler said while doubling over and suppressing her gag reflex, taking all of her will not to puke.

The young girl had been pulled apart to pieces, at every joint. She gathers herself and looks again. To the cuts and to their execution.

“How was she found?” Elizabeth asks the forensic doctor. A man of short stature she’d never seen before.

 _as if she’d been down there that often anyway_. He looked up at her from his station.

“Mixed and matched.”

A jolt circled in her spine. “I don’t—you mean—”

“Like a play doll.”

The silence is deafening this time. She asks again, she asks about the state of her, in _other ways_. He answers—to her relief—of there being no other transgressions.

Elizabeth averts her eyes to the ceiling and keeps them there for a while, mulling over what she’d heard and saw.

Psychopaths and the criminally insane were different breeds, she’d learned back at Quantico, and murderers came in any and all parts of a spectrum.

 _Playing around, with a little girl._ Cold hits her heavily and Elizabeth regrets not wearing a coat. And getting out of bed. _Dolls and control. Childish needs and feelings of being out-of-control._ Her profiling process manifests in her mind and goes about its ways. Pulling at strings of thought after thought after thought. and a finding is made. She hurriedly takes out her phone and dials for Ressler

“This is a serial Ressler, I’ve seen it before.” She clenches her jaw, out of fear, out of hatred, out of pity. “And if you don’t get him he’ll do it to some other little girl.”

She turns to leave before another thought strikes her lightning fast, and all the breath leaves her lungs.

It strikes her, how familiar the face on the bench looks. It strikes her how similar the petite body of this girl is to another one. And suddenly all of Elizabeth starts to shut down in something like a panic attack.

 _Together—get yourself together. It is not her, it is not her._ Repeats in her mind, until she believes it. No, it was not who she thought. her hair’s a darker shade of brown, and her name, which she quickly looks for, is not _that_ one.

When she regains her ability to breathe she gets up and leaves, shrugging aside the doctor’s hand and his questions of concern. _I’m fine._

She wasn’t fine at all.

 

* * *

 

“I want her back, Raymond.” She tells him.

“It’s about time.” He replies. “Agnes needs her mother, and you need her.”

She looks him in his sure eyes. “She needs the both of us.”

  

* * *

  

A buzz on the intercom leads to an answer from the other side. “Hello Elizabeth.” But the click of an open door doesn’t come. Odd.

“Let us in please.”

There’s a brief silence, and when the computer-carried voice replies “Mrs. Hargrave has not cleared Raymond Reddington to enter this building.” Her irritation comes present and visceral.

Reddington grates his teeth against each other, lets his jaw rest slightly to the side, unimpressed. But not surprised, he’s rarely ever surprised. “I could wait in the ca-“

“No, no you won’t.” She presses the button again. “Bring me Scottie. _Now_.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for making all of you wait this much sorryyyy XD  
> but school really was draining me tbh. but anyways, how are y'all? I missed it here so much! and if you've got any thoughts about this chap i'd love to hear ! Ur comments mean a lot  
> +suuuuuper excited about s6 ughhhh finalyyyy


	10. Radience

 

“What was that about?” she starts off mild, not too loud, not too offensive. Elizabeth wasn’t in the mind to argue, she was tired of antagonism, she was satiated to the brim with it.

She asks but Scottie merely looks past her, her mouth hanging on something between a frown and a smile.

Scottie, standing tall, wearing a black dress that’s entrapping her in, leather taught and stressed. Elizabeth looks at her grey and dead t-shirt, the worn-out black jeans. A look of red dresses suddenly passes her mind, a desire to show off. She looks to Reddington, following his line of sight.

“I’ve been doing some research, Red. After the hushed case that happened,” She swirled a sparkling drink in her hand before speaking. “It’s no longer hushed.”  She was not satisfied. And bad things were coming.

It falls on Elizabeth, heavy and block-like, how recent and fresh everything is, how lucky she thought they’d been.

And luck was running out.

“Let us take my grandchild and go before I rain hell on you, Scottie.” He injected the air with it, swift-cut violence, _hostility_.

Elizabeth shifts her shoulders unconsciously. The air conditioner in the room they were in was old and loud. But she could hear the danger underneath everyone’s breath.

“ _My_ grandchild, Red. Not yours.” _There it is._

He masks himself expressionless. Air forcefully sucked through his nostrils. There it is. The fall of the castle he’d built up so high, so far up he lost the gravity of what came before, but now gravity will pull it all down.

Elizabeth draws nearer to him, a half-step ahead, like she could shield him, protect him. _He’s not yours to punish._

“If you want your daughter, Liz, it won’t be around him.” Scottie tilts her head to get a better look at Elizabeth’s fingers reaching for his, encircling them, holding tight. “And by the looks of it you’re rather hung up on your daddy.”

Elizabeth scoffs loudly, features contorting. _How dare-_

“Scottie.” They both hear him growl. It’s a terrifying noise, one that was used to terrorize hardened criminals and countless enemies. For a split second Elizabeth leans further into him, body reacting to his low tone as if on autopilot. “You don’t want to _fight_ me.”

“I don’t see why not.” She laughs with lighthearted ease. “Last time went _splendid_.” She was teasing them, no one really wanted to fight him. Not now when she is known, when she can’t sneak up, or ambush. When he’s _angry._ But she’d do it nonetheless.

 “Well, _someone_ has to compromise. I for one won’t have my remaining family go off with a man that’s about to have all clandestine and criminal forces after his head _._ ”

Silence, the feel of a steel rod getting jammed into her throat, and the weight of the entire day falls on her, _this shouldn’t be happening, this shouldn’t be happening--_

 _Red, or Agnes?_ She faced a choice between them once before, and she chose _not him_. When it should have been them both. And it came to her mind after, after the ruin and the fight and the aftermath, that running from Reddington was never the wise answer. The familiar fear of loss starts gnawing in her heart like a goblin eating at flesh. Something eating away at her. A frightening thing.

“You can’t take her away from me.” Elizabeth says, bared teeth and anything but calm. _frightened_ written under her skin.

 

* * *

 

Samar is attentive, eyes cat-like. Her fiancé called her that once before. _Feline eyes. Pharaonic._ And she smiled _they’re not feline-looking_

_I said feline-like, they feel like a cat’s, not look like them._

So she stares, through Director Cooper’s office blinds, at the two people exchanging conversation. She could sense the uneasy tension where she was sat. despite not hearing a word they said, it wasn’t hard to guess what- _who -_ they were talking about, fighting about.

A memory ambushes her in her work desk, decades too late, of her mother. Still young in her mind, still alive in that distant timeline. She had sat her down after a fight she’d had with her father, one Samar couldn’t help but try and eavesdrop on, and one she had successfully misinterpreted nonetheless. Her mother had sat her down and told her: _Little rascal, if you put your nose in where it doesn’t belong, you’ll smell awful things, things you never want to smell. Or know._

Ironically that’s what she came to work as.

Ironically, she still believes her.

But Samar was a creature of instincts, much like the cat, and her instincts let her understand. Her conversation with Elizabeth Keen gave her insight, and her mind told her to worry.

Because everything led back to Reddington.

And bad things were coming.

 

* * *

  

“I can protect them both-“

“Protect yourself first, Red. Then I’ll consider your bullshit.” And that’s when Reddington chooses to back away for now. And that’s when Reddington sees the shattered look on Elizabeth’s face, and knows that walking bare-footed on broken glass would hurt him less.

 ****** 

They go back to one of his secluded villas. Guarded and alert. the trip to there silent.

It’s only when they’re inside does he speak.

“I think it’s best not to overestimate ourselves.” His words carry something, not defeat, not resentment. Just stillness.

He sees her look, her hurt, and grunts. Frustration seeping into his shoulders. _This’ll be difficult._

“Where did all of this _weakness_ come from?” she speaks to burn, speaks out of unamused-disbelief. 

“You, lying dead in the back of an ambulance.” His words slap her so hard it might’ve been his hands. “I won’t risk that nightmare becoming a reality.” It feels like something they’ve been through before. It feels like a pain she’s felt before. Only this time it’s going to topple her over the edge.

She clenches her jaw.

“There’s a way out for you.” He says, pulling out his ever-present escape route. He always has a plan. He doesn’t seem so confident now.

What does she do when Red Reddington isn’t confident?

What to do when she herself isn’t?

“Shut up, now-“

“I can ready a defense for you, take your daughter, or keep her with her grandmother.”

“And what about you?” _please be selfish_

“I’ll fight.”

She sees an image of death and loss and her anxiety taking over her control. _No._

She’ll show him control. She, the decider. The only decider, if this is how he’ll play.

She strides to where he’s sitting, tired in his brown leather armchair, besides his bookcases and books. Books she had slammed him against before, and the thought of doing it again seems inviting. He looks up at her expecting more fire, expecting a fight.

Instead she sits on top of him, and Red tries to read through the haziness of her eyes. He understands how anger slips so easily into the skin of passion and turns It into a beast. She’s rumbling low while grinding on him. And ah, there it is.

“This isn’t going to _fix_ anything.”

“ _Just shut up._ ”  She takes his hand and guides it. Warm and hot.

“Elizabeth, you getting sex isn’t more important than your safety.” Now _he’s_ angry. He pulls his hand back and she stops, her face bearing annoyance, irritation.

And when she doesn’t move he forces his way up. Toppling her back on her feet. He’s rarely ever angry, and never with _her._  

She bites her lip to stop it from shaking, but does nothing to hide the wetness forming in her eyes.

He takes a deep breath, mentally punching himself, he’s made her _upset._ grabbing her hands in his he guides her back to the arm chair, sitting and back on top of him. All the while not looking anywhere but at her, not taking in anything else but her. He was much less vicious. But he was not _gentle._ Anger slips into passion so easily, he has found.

“I’ll get you out of this predicament I drove you in to, and you’ll _listen to me_.” His mouth near hers, open. Heavy breaths and jaw slacked. This was going to be a long night.

When she finally finds her voice it’s far too low. But she’s surprised he’s caving in, but not really surprised. _It seems sex will fix something at least._ It’s a thought. And when she finds her voice she tells him to go fuck himself.

He drops his head down, muttering apologies before placing his lips on her body.

 

* * *

 

 

“He’s not who he said he was.”

“He’s still the man who did all this, who exposed us, who joined us.”

“There are things that he has that we must have, knowledge, and compensation.”

“And revenge.”

 

 

* * *

 

He sucked at her breasts and bit at her neck until it marked red and blue. Trailing and licking. None of them was thinking, nor did they want to. They’d ride this energy until it drained out of them, until they convinced their selves of a faux sense of security, of stability.

“I- “ breathless, heaving, hot. “I-“ she forgot her words when he entered her. On that chair, then in their bedroom and on their bed, she was surrendering into him completely. All the fear directed itself into her skin and she took it out here. He pushes hard, harder than he’s ever been with her and it feels like she’s being drilled into. It feels something like a goodbye.

His own breathing picks up, close, he’s close and almost trembling. Elizabeth opens her eyes and looks at him. Brows, lips, neck and chest. She wouldn’t be focused at this point, but she’s feeling his abnormal state of mind. He’s close. And she anticipates.

That’s when she feels him pulling back, pulling out. The only focused part of him warned him. They don’t need chances. Not now.

Elizabeth feels it before she sees, his recoiling. She acts fast, catching his back in her arms and holds.

“Don’t you dare.” She’s threatening. “Don’t dare come outside me.”

He bites his lip. The head of his cock barely touching her.

She lifts her body up to him. Her breasts against his chest. She can feel the stitches above his heart. “Come inside me.” She changes tone. Purrs. Whines.

When she sees his hesitation, she goes ahead and says it, confessing. She would’ve said earlier, but too many things happen to Elizabeth Keen, too much to distress her. So she goes ahead and says it, a cold-quick shock. 

“I’m already pregnant.”

He doesn’t have time to process it before she flips them over, positions herself and sinks onto him fast. And he breathes a grunt of release.

Her own moan comes out as a relief. Warm, she feels so warm.

The late evening sun is casting gold in their room. Warm. Elizabeth shifts her hair to the side. Undone, slick with sweat. She smiles down at him. Face glowing, smiles down and is met with his dumbfounded expression.

“You’re pregnant.” He echoes.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the worst pace but bear with me !! thanks to all my readers and commentators, all well appreciated and help me much. also, season 6, yes, I am, losing, my, mind. lmao but seriously many things im loving about it, the pull and tug war of Liz's emotions and that sweet sweet line signaling her making up her mind "she gave him back to me..." yes I have died. Spader is amazing as always, Red as Reddington as ever. and I love him.. and her.. and them. wow that was long but yes I love themmm
> 
> Would love to hear what you think!


	11. Tenebrous

He’s at a loss of words. A state she’s rarely seen him in, a state _very few_ have seen him in. The sheer joy battling with the horror hand on hand. It was not what he’d expected. It was the last thing he wanted. It was everything he ever wanted.

Elizabeth lays herself beside him, reaches out a hand to cup his cheek. Calm and serene. Her own worry concealed beneath skin. “I wasn’t on protection that first time.”

Still silent, eyes open. He thinks of a child in a soft colored room, in a sturdy wooden cot, smiling up to its father. He thinks of a child surrounded by death and blood.

“I’m sorry.” _Why are you apologizing?_ He comes back to her, looks at her steady, and tells her never to apologize.

It passes in his mind, the thought of letting go of it, the baby. Safe, quick, and without worry. But he grabs the thought and steps on it with a determined, damaged urge. He had entertained the same thought before, momentarily, for Agnes. And he was wrong, he was wrong. Despite the looming shadow he feels something of a spark, fire crackling and radiant, he feels something extend in his heart, expand. The thought of a child. _His child_.

“Will you-“ he takes a deep breath, “Keep it?” And Elizabeth tries to decipher him.

The thought of letting go didn’t occur to her. She wants this, _his_ child. Their child. And fear is an uninvited guest left on the outside porch.

“Yes.”

* * *

  

“They’re requesting we bring in Reddington, to review his conduct.” Cooper says tight-lipped and frowning, waves at the center of the post office. “Everything.”

Samar purses her lips. She knows what this means, and this means they’ll all be reviewed. It feels like a reckoning.

“Who’s orders?” she asks him, crosses her arms. “Why _now_?”

He mulls on her suggestion, trying to fish out a reason from the myriad of offences their C.I. has committed, from the myriad of enemies he’s so delicately cultivated. “I have no idea, but with these people in positions of power you don’t know what to expect.” He raises his eyebrows like he does, the sterile light of the office falling on the shoulders of his suit, on the lines of his face. Cooper, their commander, not in command. “Could have to do with that arrest.”

That’s when Samar figures it. And all expression is dropped from her face. 

 

* * *

  

“I’m scared.” She says, she’s been so for a long time. The feeling following her from her wedding day, from her child’s kidnapping, from her husband’s _death._

Maybe fear is the constant state, and all relief a passing strike of luck.

“So am I.”

Liz sits up right. Muscles still sore and tired “What now?”

He remembers one of the cruises he went on, top tier and expensive. Passing by obscure and unknown wonders of the islands off coasts in the far east.

“By the fourth day we were hit by the most vicious sea storm I ever had the misfortune of witnessing, rocking and tilting and _loud.”_ His tongue smacks behind his teeth before letting one laugh slip past. “The passengers had salt water ruining their several-thousands worth suites, and thunder jolting them awake from serene dreams.”

She pictures Reddington frowning at soaked shoes and wet-carpets, and the promise of death.

“It came so suddenly, we were barely a few hours off our next stop, but the storm hit us by surprise, and I thought drowning would be _extremely_ terrible.” The narrative was only fueling Elizabeth’s anxiety. “And I wondered, what now?” he gives his head a single shake. “So I called for help. Miraculously _my_ cell’s were still on, and I called for Dembe. The ship’s distress signal wasn’t being picked up, but mine was.”

She’s taking in his words, but she’s skeptical, of her _own_ luck. “And the rest of the passengers?” imploring his humanity, she knows of it too well.

“Oh god, _yes_ , I told Dembe to alert authorities.” He laughs.

“But he was near by, and got to me in a helicopter before the rescue ships. And eventually the ship didn’t sink. But it became clear to me that on my own I wouldn’t survive. That there must be always someone to call. Help to call.”

“ _Who_ could we possibly call for help, who’s going to help us out of _this_?”

He pulls in a deep drag of air. “Your grandfather.”

He knew, he knew saying this would tick her off. But fighting his urge to conceal, fighting the reflex he’d held onto for too long, this parcel he’s been holding onto for too long. Selfish almost, and so very used to. He’ll give her this at least. The cruelty of ignorance has damaged her enough, has broken them enough.

“I can’t even begin to describe-“ he hears her voice rising and rising. _Lizzy_ and her temper, so he thinks of winding her down, taking her in his sudden embrace. He hears her going quiet.

\------------------------------------

She doesn’t talk to him for a day. But high tides and her own nerves don’t allow her longer than that. He told about Dominic, explained _why_ she didn’t know, explaining and excusing and explaining.

“And he’ll help us?” she fought back against a scowl. But there’s no time for that, and she’s grown tired of _fighting_ him. “How?”

“He’s the key to your escape. To your paradise.”

* * *

 

On an island that’s quiet and yet not, the first streaks of dawn signal for the farmer’s start of day. He brushes his teeth and dons his coat, then goes out for the barn. He passes by one of the maids, up far too early, lying in the grass fields. She, fond of grass and bored of life, greets him good morning.

Bored was an apt way to describe his life. But so was content. He was content. As much as one can on a self sufficient island. On an isolated paradise.

* * *

 

“Dom? Dom, open the door.” There’s no answer. Reddington steps back, checks the older man’s car. _It’s there._

“Maybe he’s not in.” Elizabeth turns around too, pretending to check the forest and the trees. Pretending a live wire of nerves isn’t coursing through her. _Her grandfather._ She has a _grandfather._

“Something’s wrong.” He takes out his gun from its holster before she has time to react.

“ _Reddingt-“_

The door opens, and the man she’d sat across from without knowing who he was, stands with a carton of milk in his hands and a frown on his face. “Won’t you put that darn thing away you-“ his tone was light, but he shuts up the moment his eyes lay on her.

\----------------------------------

The three of them sit down in unusual ease, and a tension built up from lost childhood, lost _life._

“Masha,” It feels to him like the first time he saw her. An emotion pulled out of him by the ghost of Katarina herself. By Masha herself. It’s almost too much.

“Would you, would you like a drink?” he’s cautious and failing at hiding his excitement, his contained excitement. His bursting excitement. It’s almost adorable to her, if it wasn’t so damn tragic, if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.

“We need the key Dom.” Reddington’s grave voice cuts through her grandfather’s excitement and halts him. He senses the bad omen flowing around the room and in their chests.

“ _Why?”_

 

* * *

 

By her fourth week he notices it, her plumper breasts, her _more than usual_ swings of mood. And time starts knocking harder and harder on his door.

They didn’t tell Dom of the pregnancy, he was too _afraid._

_He’d do me in, he’d lose what’s left of his mind if he knew I fucked his granddaughter._

_Oh my god._ Her, expatriated. Him, apologetic.

_And Agnes?_

_This’ll ought to convince Scottie of your child’s safety._

_And you?_

He doesn’t answer that.

 

* * *

 

“Sweetheart.” She enters the girl’s room, carrying a brand new dress she bought for her. “Sweetie?” But there’s no answer. The small rocking chair empty, the ground an unkept mess. She was just _here._ That’s when she sees the broken crayons and the marks of dirty shoes. _Plenty._ The dropped weapon. Scottie screams. Bone-chilling and anger bloodied scream. 

“Lock down this building NOW.” The signal is sent to her private guards, to the gate guards, and to her assistants. And Scottie runs.

“How is this even _possible?”_

“The cameras were down.” And she swears bloody murder into her ear piece.

“You will all be down and taken out _if you don’t find me that girl_.”

It takes them a quarter of an hour to find the two men who’d taken her, hiding out after the shutdown, along with Agnes herself, thankfully _unharmed._ And she’s crying, Agnes clings to Scottie and they both cry. “It’s okay sweetheart.”

She sends her off to her room. And takes out her gun, pointing it at one of the men’s shins. The one that was trembling the most, his mop-like hair visible in shaking. His beat eye refusing to look at her. Almost knowing what she’ll do. And when she gets a clearer look on his face she realizes why that may be. “Lorenzo?” it’s a cold shock that vibrates in her and goes straight for her bones.

_Her own guards._

The both of them were tied down, hands behind their backs. It takes most of her will not to drill holes into their skulls, like she wanted to. Now she feeds a fear in her.

“Make them talk.” She orders, and leaves to sit guard by her girl.

 

* * *

 

It’s Reddington that reaches out to her first. With a request to meet. Saying that he will back out, that Elizabeth deserves her daughter.

“They tried to take her.” Reddington falls silent.

“ _Is she-“_

“She’s fine.” Scottie’s voice reeks of fatigue, of anger.

“ _Who?”_ The murderousness birthed into his tone could send anyone fleeing, it promised death and death only.

“An associate of mine turned enemy. He infiltrated my _ranks._ My own _guards.”_

She looked out a window onto the bustling street below. The sun nigh setting. Her blood in shambles. Boiling.

“She’s not safe here Red.”

He was already getting up, grabbing his gun and leaving out the door. “I’m taking her myself.”

He thinks of Elizabeth sleeping in their bedroom, his child inside her, fatigue wearing her out. He thinks of the life she deserves. He thinks of the beautiful little girl he raised for a year being in danger. And the door shuts behind him with a silence.

"I want a team ready, Dembe."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! How are you doing? my semester is nearing an end which is like... GOD it took it long enough.  
> anyways! finals are here and so excuse any sloppiness in this lmao.  
> let me know what you think, i live for ur comments! (this was pretty intense I know im sorry lol)


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